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Frost at Midnight
POEM TEXT 41 A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
42 For still I hoped to see the str
stranger's
anger's face,
1 The Frost performs its secret ministry, 43 Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
2 Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry 44 My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!
3 Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
45 Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
4 The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
46 Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
5 Have left me to that solitude, which suits
47 Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
6 Abstruser musings: save that at my side
48 And momentary pauses of the thought!
7 My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
49 My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
8 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
50 With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
9 And vexes meditation with its strange
51 And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
10 And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
52 And in far other scenes! For I was reared
11 This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
53 In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
12 With all the numberless goings-on of life,
54 And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
13 Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
55 But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
14 Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
56 By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
15 Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
57 Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
16 Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
58 Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
17 Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
59 And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
18 Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
60 The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
19 Making it a companionable form,
61 Of that eternal language, which thy God
20 Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
62 Utters, who from eternity doth teach
21 By its own moods interprets, every where
63 Himself in all, and all things in himself.
22 Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
64 Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
23 And makes a toy of Thought.
65 Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
24 But O! how oft,
66 Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
25 How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
67 Whether the summer clothe the general earth
26 Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
68 With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
27 To watch that fluttering str
stranger
anger ! and as oft
69 Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
28 With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
70 Of mossy apple-tree, while the night-thatch
29 Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
71 Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
30 Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
72 Heard only in the trances of the blast,
31 From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
73 Or if the secret ministry of frost
32 So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
74 Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
33 With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
75 Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
34 Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
35 So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
36 Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
37 And so I brooded all the following morn, SUMMARY
38 Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
39 Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: The winter frost secretly goes about its holy tasks without any
help from the wind. The baby owl cried out loudly,
40 Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
and—listen!—cries out just as loud again. The other residents of

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my little country house are all asleep, leaving me alone—which
is fine by me, since it gives me the chance to ponder some
obscure thoughts—except for my baby sleeping peacefully in a
cradle next to me. It's very calm tonight! In fact, it's so calm that
my thoughts are disrupted by the unusual and extreme quiet.
The sea, the hills, the forest—this town full of people! The sea,
the hills, the forest, with all the endless things going on inside
them, are as silent as dreams! There's only a small blue flame in
my fireplace, where the fire's dying, and it doesn't move. Only
the film of soot on the grate of the fire place is still fluttering,
the one thing in my surroundings that isn't peaceful. Its
movement amid all this stillness makes me (who actually is
alive) feel like I can relate to it. It's like a companion that is
similar to me. My mind interprets the soot's tiny movements as
reflections of my own thoughts—everywhere I look, my mind
finds echoes or mirrors of itself. As a result, thought become
something trivial and easily manipulated.
Oh! How often—how often!—when I was at school and my
mind would believe anything and I was alert to omens, would I
look deeply into the grate of the fireplace. There I watched the
soot fluttering around like a strange visitor. And just as often,
with my eyes open, I would have already dreamt about my
hometown. I dreamt about the old church tower whose bells,
the only music that those living in poverty had, would ring all
day during the hot fair. These bells sounded so lovely that they
filled me with an uncontrollable joy. Their sounds came to my
ears just like words from the future. And so when I was at
school I would look into the fire until these soothing dreams
helped me fall asleep, and sleep in turn continued these
dreams. And then I'd keep thinking about them all the next
morning, while sitting in terror of the strict teacher's face. I'd
stare straight at my book, pretending to read, while my
daydreams made the words feel like they were swimming.
However, if anyone opened the door just a bit, I would look up
quickly and slyly, and my heart would skip a beat. I still was
hoping to see someone's face, someone I didn't know, or
someone from my hometown, or my aunt, or my sister, whom I
loved so much—who was my play mate back when we were so
young they dressed us in the same clothes.
My dear infant child, sleeping in your cradle at my side, with
your gentle breaths that I can hear in this totally calm night,
your breaths fill all the moments of silence and emptiness in my
thoughts! My dear beautiful child! It fills me with gentle
happiness to look at you and know that you won't have to grow
up like I did. Instead, you'll learn other things and in other
places! After all, I was raised in the big city, shut up in dark
schools. I didn't see any beautiful things except for the sky and
stars. But you, my child, you'll get to explore nature like a
drifting breeze, wandering by lakes and beaches, under the
cliffs of old mountains, under clouds, whose size mimics the size
of lakes and beaches and cliffs. As a result, you'll see and hear
the signs and words of the eternal language that God speaks.
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From God's realm in eternity, he teaches people how he made
everything, and how everything leads back to God. He teaches
everyone about everything. He will form your soul, and by
teaching it make it ask more questions.
As a result, all the seasons will be pleasant to you. It will be
pleasant if summer covers the earth with green, or if a robin sits
and sings between clumps of snow on the empty branch of an
apple tree, while mist rises from the straw roof drying under
the sun. It will be pleasant whether the sound of rain dripping
from the roof is heard only by the howling wind, or if the secret
tasks of frost hangs the dripping rain as icicles, which silently
shine in the silent moonlight.
THEMES
THE DIVINITY OF NATURE
The speaker of “Frost at Midnight” believes that
people can become closer to God through nature.
Since God created the natural world, the poem implies, it
follows that lakes and forests and mountains are like God’s
language; communing with nature, then, is a way of communing
with God. The divinity of nature ultimately teaches people how
to find spiritual fulfillment, whether in the depths of winter or
the heights of summer.
This idea that nature is the language of God becomes clearest
at the end of the poem, when the speaker says that “lakes and
shores / And mountain crags” are the “lovely shapes and
sounds” in God’s “eternal language.” In other words, God
communicates through the sights and sounds of nature, using
the natural world to speak to human beings. More specifically,
God “doth teach / Himself in all, and all things in himself.” In
other words, through things like clouds and mountains and
lakes, God teaches people about himself, and about how
everything ultimately comes from God. According to the
speaker, people who study the natural world find that God is
the source of all things.
The speaker seems to suggest that nature in fact teaches
people the most important things about existence itself. And
when people learn from God through nature, they find peace
and fulfillment. The speaker believes that God can “mould” the
“spirit” of those who spend time in nature. That is, in immersing
themselves in the world that God created, people can fill their
very souls with the language of God, which will "mould"—or
shape—them positively. As a result, people can develop
spiritually when they spend time in nature. For such people, “all
seasons shall be sweet.” Whether it is summer or winter, they
have a sense of spiritual well-being because they are close to
God.
Ultimately, the speaker concludes that time spent in nature is
the best thing for a person’s soul. God created the natural
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world, and it's through this world that God speaks to
people—teaching them how he created everything and is the
source of all peace and fulfillment.
Where this theme appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-3
• Lines 8-13
• Lines 49-75
CHILDHOOD, NATURE, AND HOPE
The speaker grew up feeling lonely and isolated at an
urban school, and the poem reflects the hope of
many parents that their kids will have it better than they
themselves did. Holding his “cradled infant,” the speaker talks
about wanting his child to grow up amid nature, which he
argues will be much more fulfilling than city life.
Speaking to his infant child, the speaker presents being raised
in “the great city” as a stifling, deeply lonely experience. His
descriptions create a claustrophobic atmosphere; he was “pent
'mid cloisters dim / And saw naught lovely but the sky and
stars.” In other words, when the speaker was a kid, the city
crowded out all beautiful things except the sky above. Making
matters worse, the speaker went to a school in the city where
the teacher was a “stern preceptor[].” Clearly feeling lonely and
isolated in this urban environment, the speaker would spend all
day hoping that a “Townsman, or aunt, or sister” would show up.
For him, the city was the worst place to spend childhood.
The speaker also clearly loves his child, and apparently
mentions all this because he wants something different for that
child—specifically, a youth spent closer to nature. Instead of
leaving home to go school in the city, the speaker imagines the
child having a youth filled with freedom and fulfillment within
the natural world.
This speaker imagines, for example, that his child will “wander
like a breeze / By lakes and sandy shores.” In other words, the
speaker’s child shall be free as wind, and be immersed in
beautiful natural sights. Enthusiastically describing such a
childhood, the speaker clearly believes it will be “sweet” in “all
seasons”—the best youth the speaker’s child could have.
Instead of having a “stern preceptor” (i.e., a strict teacher) the
speaker imagines his child being taught by God himself. In
nature, according to the speaker, his child will “see and hear /
The lovely shapes and sounds” of God. In other words, God will
teach the speaker’s child through the sights and sounds of
nature. The speaker’s child will feel free and spiritually fulfilled,
wandering through beautiful nature and learning from God
himself.
It thus fills the speaker with “tender gladness” to think that his
child won’t have to grow up in the city and go to such a
repressive boarding school. Instead, his child will have freedom
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out in nature, where God himself will teach the child everything
that needs to be known.
Where this theme appears in the poem:
• Lines 4-7
• Lines 24-66
ENVIRONMENT AND STATE OF MIND
For the speaker, environments have a big effect on
how people think and feel. Throughout the poem, the
speaker describes how surroundings can both guide and
interrupt one’s thoughts. The mind is intimately linked to its
surroundings, the poem implies, and as such different
environments can conjure different moods, bring up old
memories, and even create anticipation for the future.
From the beginning of the poem, the speaker emphasizes the
way that his environment affects how he thinks, sometimes
helping his thoughts progress, other times hindering them from
getting anywhere. For example, the speaker begins by
describing the winter night, with its slow onset of frost and the
“owlet’s cry.” The “solitude” of such a night “suits” the speaker,
granting the space to think. As a result, the speaker’s thoughts
depend on this wintry environment—after all, the poem is
called “Frost at Midnight.”
Soon after, however, the speaker also describes how this kind
of night “disturbs / And vexes meditations”—that is, sometimes
it interrupts or frustrates trains of thoughts. Here, the speaker
captures how environments can impede people’s thoughts, so
that their minds wander, or they have a hard time getting into
the right headspace. The beginning of the poem, then, captures
the two extremes when it comes to how surroundings can
affect people’s thoughts: either helping them work through
things, or distracting them at every turn.
The speaker’s environment also leads him to recall powerful
memories that are saturated with a sense of place. These
memories capture how people’s environments can both
transport them into the past and be full of anticipation for the
future. For instance, soot in the fireplace leads the speaker to
recall looking at soot as a child: at boarding school, the speaker
would stare into the fireplace and dream about his “sweet birth
place” (his home). In other words, the sooty fireplace is
associated with memories of looking into the fire as a kid. This
moment captures how surroundings can trigger memories, and
how memories are often soaked in impressions of a particular
place.
Other times, places can seem to conjure the future. For
instance, the sound of church bells on “the hot Fair-day […]
stirred and haunted” the speaker. The bells seemed to be full of
“articulate sounds of things to come.” In other words, the fair
day and its pervasive bells made the speaker feel anticipation,
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sensing that exciting things were going to happen in the future.
In the present moment, though, the adult speaker greatly
values serene environments. The poem ends on tranquil images
of the natural world that are meant to resonate with the reader,
capturing how an environment can create a sense of peace. In
the last stanza, the speaker lyrically conjures different seasons.
The speaker describes, for example, “summer cloth[ing] the
general earth / With greenness,” and “silent icicles / Quietly
shining to the quiet Moon.” These images are imbued with a
deep sense of stillness and peace. It’s as if these final lines
create an environment and state of mind for the reader, so that
the reader shares the speaker’s tranquility. By creating this
shared environment for both reader and speaker, the poem
ends on a deep, resonant feeling of peace.
Throughout the poem, then, the speaker describes how his
surroundings guide his thoughts, transporting him through
many memories and moods and concluding with the images of
the happiness that natural surroundings provide.
Where this theme appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-75
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS
LINES 1-6
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings:
"Frost at Midnight" is one of Coleridge's most famous poems,
and is often considered among the best of his so-called
"conversation poems." Compared to other poems written at the
time—and to most poems written in English before
then—Coleridge's conversation poems have a distinctly
personal feel to them. In "Frost at Midnight," a speaker mulls
over his life and surroundings late at night, talking about things
as they happen outside or as they pop into his head. As a result,
the poem feels like a piece of an intimate conversation the
speaker is having with the reader.
The poem takes place in a cottage late at night. The speaker is
up while everyone else has gone to bed. His young child is
sleeping in a cradle next to him. Outside, it's winter, and "Frost
performs its secret ministry." In other words, frost (a thin coat
of ice) is forming on the landscape.
"[M]inistry" refers to the tasks of a minister (i.e., a priest). Right
off the bat, then, the speaker hints at the feeling that there is
something sacred about nature. This sacredness has a "secret"
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quality to it, in that it's happening outside, unobserved, while a
baby owl cries again and again. Apart from this cry, the night is
mysteriously still and quiet—so still that it's as if the speaker
can sense the frost forming. As a result of this stillness, the
speaker can let his mind delve into "abstruser musings"—that is,
into obscure thoughts, the kind of things people ponder when
they're up late at night.
The poem is written in iambic pentameter, a meter of five iambs
per line (feet with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm):
Unhelped
helped | by a- | ny wind
wind. | The owl
owl- | et's cry
Although the speaker follows this meter relatively closely, it's
also pretty unobtrusive. In fact, the meter lends the poem a
relaxed, spoken feel. It doesn't feel like the speaker is trying to
dress things up too much. Instead, the speaker describes things
as they happen or pop into his mind, such as when the speaker
hears the baby owl's cry, "The owlet's cry / Came loud," and
then hears it a second time: "and hark, again! loud as before."
Here, it's as if the poem is happening real time, as if the reader
is sitting next to the speaker and his baby in their warm, cozy
cottage.
This conversational feel doesn't mean that the speaker doesn't
strive for evocative or precise language. In fact, throughout the
poem, the speaker describes his surroundings very carefully.
Yet he doesn't make these descriptions overly flowery. Instead,
he just tries capture, in relatively unadorned language, how
different images appear to him in the moment.
Of course, no one these days talks like this. But while the
poem's language may feel elevated and composed to modern-
day readers, to Coleridge's contemporary readers it felt
daringly informal. Many had a hard time seeing its beauty. So,
beneath the friendliness and cozy descriptions, there is radical
innovation and a measure of risk-taking—the speaker is going
out on a limb to address the reader in this way, extending a
perhaps improper invitation to his own intimate thoughts.
LINES 6-11
save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village!
Having set the scene, the speaker adds in some more specific
details that complicate things a bit. First off, the speaker
introduces his child: "at my side / My cradled infant slumbers
peacefully." The speaker is a new parent sitting next to his
sleeping baby.
Meanwhile, the speaker begins to feel that the night is actually
a little too calm. It is "so calm, that is disturbs / And vexes
meditation." There's something "strange / And extreme" about
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the night's silence, which actually makes it a little hard to
concentrate. Though the speaker wants to engage in "abstruser
musings"—deep thoughts—something about the night keeps
interrupting or distracting him. As a result, the poem will not
follow a straight and logical course, but instead twist and turn
as the speaker's mind drifts through memories, thoughts, and
observations.
Here, the speaker abruptly turns away from his inner "musings"
to evoke the surrounding landscape: "Sea, hill, and wood, / This
populous village!" In this moment, the speaker seems to
procrastinate—rather than delving into deep thoughts, the
speaker directs his attention outward.
As before, the speaker continues in blank vverse
erse, or unrh
unrhymed
ymed
iambic pentameter:
My cr
craa- | dled in
in- | fant slum
slum- | bers peace
peace- | fully
ly.
Here, the straightforward da-DUM
DUM rhythm captures the
calmness of the night and the lulling sound of a peacefully
sleeping baby. For the most part, the speaker stays true to this
meter
meter.
Sometimes, however, he does change it up for emphasis. For
instance, this is line 10:
And ex- | treme sil
sil- | entness. | Sea
Sea, hill
hill, | and wood
wood,
Employing two pyrrhics (da-da) as well as two spondees
(DUM
DUM-DUM
DUM), the speaker creates a choppy rhythm. This
captures the sudden change in direction of the speaker's
thoughts, like momentary choppiness as a video refreshes.
LINES 11-16
Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
The speaker once again invokes the landscape—the "Sea, and
hill, and wood." Speaking off the cuff, the speaker repeats this
phrase as he gathers his thoughts. With the extra "and" the
speaker slows down a little, considering each word individually:
"Sea," "hill," "wood." The speaker thinks about how each of
these—the ocean, the hills, and the forest—are full of life, even
at night. Yet on such a quiet night, it's impossible to hear all that
life. Anything happening outside the speaker's cottage is as
inaccessible as somebody else's dreams.
Feeling isolated from these other lives, the speaker returns to
his own existence. He gazes at the remains of the fire in his
fireplace, where all that's left is a small blue flame that barely
seems to move. In fact, the only thing that moves in the
speaker's world is the film of soot (ash) that has gathered on
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the grate of the fireplace. This soot "flutters" slightly, making it
"the sole unquiet thing." "[U]nquiet" can mean not quiet, but it
can also mean uneasy. In other words, this soot has a sort of
anxious quality to it.
This moment of close observation of the speaker's humble
surroundings is a signature move of Coleridge and associated
writers (such as William W
Wordsworth
ordsworth). These writers, who are
now generally called Romantic, believed that artists should try
to depict what the world around them—especially the natural
world—was actually like. Even though these artists also
explored intense feeling, inner experiences, and even outright
fantasy, they always returned to the natural world and careful
observation as the root of all these things.
Coleridge demonstrates that belief in this poem. Although the
speaker is about to follow his thoughts through a complex train
of memories and hopes, that train begins with this description
of the fireplace. The speaker isn't fancy in his description of the
fireplace, but he is precise, allowing the reader to visualize it.
This isn't a generic fireplace, but the speaker's particular
fireplace at this particular place and time. This departs from
much poetry of Coleridge's time, which tended to write more
generalized and abstract descriptions, often referencing
classical mythology (for instance) instead of trying to create
concrete images.
LINES 17-19
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Having described the soot's "film, which fluttered on the grate,"
the speaker now compares that soot to his own mind. Just as
the soot is "unquiet"—that is, not only not quiet, but also uneasy
or anxious—the speaker's mind is similarly anxious.
The speaker feels a connection to the soot's "motion in this
hush of nature," its fluttering amid the calm of night. More
specifically, the speaker feels "dim sympathies" with the soot.
Here, "dim" means cloudy or obscure (think back to "abstruser
musings") and "sympathy" is a feeling of similarity or
relatability. In other words, the speaker's kinship with the soot
is vague, mysterious. This kinship makes the soot a
"companionable form," something like a companion or friend.
The speaker doesn't just observe the soot from a detached
perspective, then, but feels an emotional connection with it.
Again, this is the kind of perception that Coleridge and other
Romantics preferred, believing that engaging with nature on an
emotional level could help people understand both themselves
and the world around them. With everyone else asleep, the
speaker instead turns towards a distinctly non-human object, a
thin mass of soot, as his conversation partner. In fact, this flame
isn't even alive!
The speaker uses consonance to capture the movement of the
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soot:
Methinkss, itss mottion in thiss hush
sh of natture
Givess it dim
m symmpathiess with me who live,
Making it a com mpanionable form m,
The sibilant and near-sibilant /s/, /sh/, and /ch/ sounds in the
first two lines capture the hushed feeling of the scene, as if the
speaker is whispering. Meanwhile, the /m/ sound throughout
these lines links the speaker ("m
me") and with the "m motion" of the
"commpanionable form m," so that the speaker and fireplace form
one cohesive tableau.
LINES 20-23
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.
At the end of the first stanza, the speaker continues to describe
the connection he feels with the soot. The speaker says that his
mind interprets the flame as reflecting its own moods. In other
words, whatever state of mind that speaker is in—happy,
anxious, peaceful, etc.—he'll feel like the soot captures that
state. More specifically, the speaker refers to "the idling Spirit"
here. "Spirit" is the speaker's mind or imagination, and "idling"
means unoccupied. The speaker says his idle mind "By its own
moods interprets," meaning that the mind interprets things
according to its own moods.
That is, the speaker's idle mind seizes upon anything that grabs
its attention, loading that thing (here, the soot) with its own
baggage. The human mind wants to find an "Echo" or "mirror" in
the surrounding world; it looks for things that will reflect its
own moods, thoughts, and desires. It's commonly thought that
the Romantic writers loaded up the world around them with
their own emotions, making the natural world a kind of "mirror."
Note, however, that's not quite what's going on here. Rather,
the speaker says the human mind "seek[s]" for such mirrors.
People try to find things in the world that will reflect their own
states of mind, but that doesn't mean they find such things
everywhere, or even that they should.
In fact, as a result of such seeking, thought becomes a "toy," a
manipulatable and insignificant thing. In other words, when
people try to see themselves in everything, they end up having
flimsy and inconsequential thoughts—they can't think too
clearly anymore. With regard to his particular situation, the
speaker suggests that by identifying so strongly with the soot,
his mind has become like the soot: fluttering, thin.
LINES 24-29
But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
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To watch that fluttering
stranger
! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place,
The leap from the first to the second verse paragraph, or
stanza, represents a leap in the speaker's mind. The fluttering
soot takes the speaker back to his schoolboy days, when he
used to stare at the soot and daydream.
The speaker begins, "But O! how oft, / How often, at school."
This "But" acts as rebuttal to the speaker's earlier assertion
that identifying with the soot makes a "toy" of the speaker's
thought. Instead, the speaker is going to assert a meaningful
relationship with the soot. As a boy, the speaker looked at the
soot with "most believing mind"—that is, looked at it earnestly.
To him, the soot seemed "Presageful," it seemed like some kind
of sign about the future. According to Coleridge, such films of
soot were colloquially called strangers in England because they
were supposed to be omens signaling that some old friend
would be arriving. It makes sense, then, that the young speaker
looked into the soot with a feeling of anticipation. The
repetition (more specifically epizeuxis
epizeuxis) of "how oft / How oft"
captures the speaker's strong emotions here.
It's also telling that the speaker dreamt of his "sweet birth-
place," his hometown. The speaker was at boarding school and
feeling homesick. If the film of soot is supposed to signal the
arrival of some absent friend, then this must have made the
speaker think of all the people left behind in his hometown. In
fact, the young speaker would dream of being home even when
he was still awake and his eyes were open. Up late at night, he
stared into the fire while his mind drifted through memories.
Sound familiar? That's because this is what the adult speaker
was just doing in the first stanza. Thus, although the poem
appears to make a sudden leap here, in retrospect it's actually
quite logical in its own way: the adult speaker stares into the
fire, drifting through memories, which makes him remember
doing the same thing as a child.
LINES 29-34
and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
Stanza 2 began as a memory of the speaker's boarding school
days. The speaker recalled gazing into the fire as a young boy,
dreaming of home. Now the poem dives into the young
speaker's memories of home. These next lines become a
memory of a memory, the adult speaker remembering being a
boy remembering life at home.
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Specifically, the speaker dreams about the "Fair-day" in his
town, a festive time when everyone was out and the church
bells rang all day. These bells are the focal point of the speaker's
memory, just as the soot in the fireplace was previously the
center of attention. The imagery
imagery, then, shifts from sight (the
fluttering soot) to sound, conjuring the quality of church bells
ringing music that resounds all over the town.
These church bells ring "From morn to evening"—that is, all
day—and are "the poor man's only music." In an era before mp3
files, CDs, or records, the only way to experience music was to
hear it live. For those who couldn't afford to go to concerts,
church was one of the main ways they got to listen to music. For
common folk, then, the church wasn't just a spiritual fixture but
an aesthetic one as well. Even just going to a festival meant that
the church enlivened the day with music and a sense of
celebration.
This mixing of church, music, and everyday life signals one of
the speaker's more general beliefs: that spirituality, art, and
people's surroundings are all intertwined. Here, the speaker
addresses this idea by describing how the bells affect him. The
speaker says, "they stirred and haunted me / With a wild
pleasure." The bells create a powerful and mysterious feeling in
the speaker. To him, the sounds of the bells almost seem like
"articulate sounds of things to come." Put bluntly, the music
sounds like words from the future. The music is, as the speaker
put it in line 26, "Presageful."
The environment's ability to awaken powerful emotions is a
central element of Coleridge's poetic philosophy. More
specifically, Coleridge is interested in this feeling "of things to
come," a sense of things beyond oneself. Coleridge and his
friend the poet William Wordsworth devoted a lot of energy to
investigating how such feelings get awakened. They believed
that this feeling of anticipation isn't just for some future event,
but that it was a sudden awareness of the deeper nature of
reality, a glimpse of God.
LINES 35-39
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:
Now, the young speaker returns from his memory of "the hot
Fair-day" back to his place by the fire at boarding school.
Daydreaming of home by the fire, the speaker begins to fall
asleep, where his dreams of home continue. As a result, sleep
"prolong[s]" the speaker's dreams. The speaker spends all
evening and all night dreaming about his hometown. Even in
the classroom the next day, the speaker continues to daydream
about his home.
As the speaker describes his daydreaming in the classroom, he
paints a picture of the kind of environment he was educated in.
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His teacher is a "stern preceptor[]" whose "face" the speaker
feels "Awed by." In other words, the speaker has a strict teacher
who scares him. Yet this strictness doesn't inspire the speaker
to work harder. Instead, he engages in "mock study," only
pretending to read. This description hints at the experience of
being a young English boy attending school in the late 1700s. It
wasn't a fun, colorful, or happy experience. It doesn't even
appear that the speaker necessarily learned all that much.
Instead, school was stifling, even repressive.
The speaker finds it hard to focus on his reading, so that the
text in his book appears to be "swimming." Just as the adult
speaker is easily distracted, finding it hard to continue down a
single train of thought, so too does the young speaker's mind
wander. In contrast with the strict requirements of the teacher,
the speaker emphasizes people's natural tendency to
daydream, to let their imaginations carry them away. Although
Coleridge himself was very well-read, he valued his own
imagination just as much as book learning, and he had a
troubled and conflicted relationship with schooling. Ultimately,
he doesn't seem to have been convinced that English
educational methods were sufficient for developing people's
mind and souls, something he begins to hint at in these
descriptions.
The meter in lines 36-36 mixes bumpy and smooths rhythms,
capturing both the "Lull[]" of the dreams and fireplace as well as
the speaker's deep feelings of homesickness and isolation:
So gazed | I, till | the soo
soo- | thing things
things, | I dreamt
dreamt,
Lulled me | to sleep
sleep, | and sleep | prolonged
longed | my
dreams
dreams!
The second halves of each of these lines are regular iambic
pentameter, capturing the "soothing" effect of the speaker's
dreams. The first halves of the lines are a little rockier, however.
Each begins with a spondee (DUM
DUM-DUMDUM) (though it's possible
to read "So gazed
gazed"as an iamb), and the first follows that with a
trochee (DUM
DUM-da). This rougher rhythm conveys the speaker's
turmoil as he longs for home and strives to satisfy that longing
in his dreams.
LINES 40-44
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the
stranger's
face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!
At the end of the first stanza, the speaker looks up from his
"swimming book" as he glances at a "door half opened." Any
time the door to the classroom opened even just a little, the
speaker stole a quick look, hoping it was someone he knew.
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The speaker describes how his "heart leaped up," or skipped a
beat, hoping to see a familiar face. The speaker reintroduces
the term "stranger" here, a colloquial name for the film of soot
that forms on the grate of the fireplace, and which was
supposed to signal that an old friend would be arriving. The
speaker hopes this means that someone from his old town, or
his aunt, or best of all his sister, will be arriving. The speaker's
sister is most "beloved" of all these people, since she had been
his "play-mate" when they were little children.
Before the 20th century, it was common to dress very young
children, regardless of gender, in dresses. Effectively, babies,
toddlers, and youngsters wore gender-neutral clothing. As a
result, the speaker and his sister "were clothed alike" as little
kids. The speaker looks back fondly on these early days. From
his isolation in school, he longs to for the companionship of his
sister again.
The speaker uses repetition
repetition, specifically diacope and
polyptoton
polyptoton, to capture his momentary excitement at the door
opening:
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
The repetition of "and," "still," and "or" create a breathless
feeling, each repeated word extending the sentence just a bit
more as the speaker describes his thought process.
LINES 45-48
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
In the third stanza, the speaker turns from his memories back
to the present moment. It's as if those memories have run their
course, and thinking about himself and his sister as babies
makes the speaker return to his own baby.
So, back in the present, the speaker observes his sleeping child,
"[w]hose gentle breathings [are] heard in this deep calm."
Basically, the speaker pauses and listens to his baby breathe.
The baby's breath is very "gentle," yet because the night is such
a "deep calm" that speaker can still hear his baby clearly.
These breaths:
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
In other words, the sound of the baby's breathing fills the
speaker's mind when his thoughts go blank. Having come to the
end of a sequence of memories, the speaker seems to lose his
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train of thought and instead lets this gentle sound fill his mind.
This moment captures the speaker's love for his child. Sitting up
late by his sleeping child's cradle, he shares a tender moment
with the "Dear Babe." The way the baby's breath fills the
speaker's mind also captures the change of perspective that
comes with being a parent. The speaker's life is now entangled
with that of his child. As his child's breath mingle with his
thoughts, it's as if their two beings merge in some way. There's
a deep sense of spiritual responsibility here, one that the
speaker will try to address in the coming lines.
This sense of entanglement is also captured through the
stanza's use of apostrophe
apostrophe: the speaker directly addresses his
sleeping child as "Dear Babe." The child is asleep and can't
respond in any way. This use of apostrophe captures the
speaker's powerful emotions, as if he can't hold back his love
and address his child in this intimate manner.
LINES 49-54
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
In these lines, the speaker directly address his hopes for his
child. The speaker talks about the kind of childhood he had, and
wishes something better for his child.
The speaker says "it thrills my heart / With tender gladness" to
think that his child won't have the same kind of education as he
had. The speaker is exceedingly happy that his child will "learn
far other lore, / And in far other scenes!" "[L]ore" is traditional
knowledge that has been passed down for generations, often
with connotations of being spiritual, legendary, mystical, or
even occult. Here, the speaker implicitly seems to contrast his
strict and formal education with something more spiritual.
Furthermore, he hoes child will learn this lore in a totally
different setting than the speaker did. The speaker grew up in
"the great city," confined among buildings so that the only
beautiful things he saw were "the sky and the stars."
The speaker also conveys his dislike of the city. For him, the city
is associated with his unhappy time at school (Coleridge himself
went to school in London). Additionally, he doesn't think cities
are beautiful. There's not much nature in them, for one. Early
industrial London could indeed be a bleak place, as factory
smoke began to fill the sky and water became more polluted.
The speaker implies that were he lived there weren't even any
trees, and certainly none of the mountains or lake shores that
he references in the next section of the poem.
Again in this section the speaker employs apostrophe
apostrophe, once
more addressing his child directly, even though the "babe" is
asleep. This kind of address captures the intimate thoughts
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parents have about their children. The speaker's heart is full of
love and his head is full of hopes for his child. The child can't
hear any of this, but that doesn't stop the speaker from carrying
on.
LINES 55-59
But
thou
, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags:
The speaker begins to elaborate on his vision for his child's
youth and education, again beginning with apostrophe
apostrophe. Instead
of attending a stuffy boarding school in a depressing city, the
speaker imagines his child being as free as "a breeze" to explore
nature. His child will get to see the beautiful sights of "lakes and
sandy shores" as well as "the crags," or cliffs, "Of ancient
mountain." Above, the huge clouds will mirror the hugeness of
the water and beaches and cliffs.
Here, the speaker emphasizes two things that he values very
highly: freedom and nature. In the speaker's formulation here,
these things seem to be intertwined. Being in nature gives
people more freedom, and having freedom gives people the
chance to get the most out of nature. Furthermore, the speaker
implies that roaming about in nature with a sense of freedom is
in fact a better education that going to a proper school. In
school, there are only "stern preceptor[s]" and "swimming
book[s]," while in nature there is "lore," or spiritual knowledge.
In emphasizing the superiority of nature, the speaker suddenly
opens up the poem's imagery
imagery. Up until now, everything had
been confined. The speaker began by describing a single room
in a little cottage, then the confined rooms of boarding school
and the cramped feeling of the city. Now, the imagery zooms
out. The speaker evokes giant lakes and mountains, conjuring
grand landscapes and wide open nature. After the
claustrophobia of the preceding imagery, this turn offers a
breath of fresh air. And that's exactly the speaker's point:
nature is much better for people's minds and souls than the
cramped conditions of cities and classrooms.
LINES 59-65
so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Having evoked the kinds of landscapes he wants his child to
grow up in, the speaker describes why he thinks those
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landscapes are spiritually beneficial. According to the speaker,
nature is the language of God.
More specifically, the speaker says that the "lovely shapes and
sounds" of nature are part of God's "eternal language." These
shapes and sounds are "intelligible," meaning they can be
understood. They are like symbols and words. In the speaker's
vision of reality, the natural landscape is like a giant text or
conversation that God is having with mortals. Although God
exists in the realm of "eternity," the everlasting realm of
Heaven, he speaks to humans with nature and teaches them
the right way to live.
God's teachings, according to the speaker, have two
components that are mirror images of each other. He teaches
"Himself in all" and teaches "all things in himself." That is:
1. Each individual thing in nature provides some lesson
about God.
2. God is the ultimate root of—or reason for—all
things.
As a result of these two components, nature (and even more
broadly, reality itself) and teaching become powerfully
intertwined. It seems that God created nature as a means of
teaching humans. God is the "Great Universal Teacher"
because he uses the universe to teach everyone about
everything.
The speaker has radical ideas about nature and education, and
big hopes for his child. He believes that spending time in nature
allows God to "mould," or shape, one's "spirit." In other words,
people can develop their souls and become more enlightened
beings simply by spending time in nature, studying the "eternal
language" of God. Doing so will give people more spiritual
satisfaction, and it will also lead them to ask more questions:
"by giving make [them] ask." Thus, for the speaker, a spiritual
education in nature is never over. It always provides
sustenance for people's souls, but it also always leads people on
to deeper and deeper questions as they ponder the nature of
existence.
LINES 66-71
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the night-thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw;
In the final stanza, the speaker elaborates what he thinks the
results will be of a life spent in spiritual communion with God
and nature. In particular, he thinks it will lead to satisfaction and
peace in all seasons. "Therefore all season shall be sweet to
thee," says the speaker. And rather than going on to abstractly
describe those feelings, the speaker instead puts his faith in
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imagery
imagery. The stanza describes different seasonal scenes,
implicitly conveying how each of these scenes creates its own
unique sense of peace for an enlightened observer.
First, the speaker describes the greenery of summer: "Whether
the summer clothe the general earth / With greenness." Here,
the green leaves of summer metaphorically become the earth's
clothing. By evoking "the general earth"—roughly, the whole
world—the speaker again conjures large landscapes. It's easy to
image rolling green hills under a summer sun. Additionally, in
comparing leaves to clothes, the speaker suggests a sense of
wellness, of being well-clothed and well-cared for. That is one
kind of peace.
Next, the speaker a different, more wintry sense of peace. He
imagines seeing:
[...] the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree [...]
Here, a red robin stands out among the white snow and black
bark of a branch in the winter, and its song stands out just as
the "owlet's cry" did at the beginning of the poem. The lush
imagery of this description ("tufts of snow," "mossy apple-tree")
captures how even winter has its own richness, its own
"sweet[ness]." Although the branch is "bare" of leaves, it still has
the beauty of the robin and the snow.
Meanwhile, in this same scene, things are melting under the
winter sun. The "night-thatch"—the frozen straw roof of a
cottage—"Smokes in the sun-thaw." Mist rises from the roof as
the sun melts its snow and ice. Again, there is a sense of life,
beauty, and peace. This isn't quite the same peace as that of
summer, but it is "sweet" nonetheless.
LINES 71-75
whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
In the final lines of the poem, the speaker comes full circle. First,
he evokes the harsher experiences of nature: "the eave-drops
fall / Heard only in the trances of the blast." Here, raindrops fall
from the roof during a storm. Nothing can hear them amid the
howling wind except the wind itself.
Evoking the harshness of the wind, the speaker calls it "the
blast." And yet even this rainstorm has a measure of serenity to
it, captured by the word "trances"—that is, a state of something
like hypnosis. In other words, there's a kind of meditative
quality to the storm, eradicating all the senses yet, again, not
without its own peculiar form of tranquility.
The next phrase is where the speaker comes full circle:
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Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Recall that Frost's "secret ministry" was also in the first line of
the poem. By repeating this phrase in slightly modified form,
like a kind of refr
refrain
ain, the speaker explicitly signals that he's
come back to where he began. This circularity creates a feeling
of satisfaction. It assures the reader that the poem has had
some sort of structure all along. Although the speaker's mind
has wandered, it turns out that he was actually progressing
through a meditation on childhood, parenting, education,
nature, and God.
By returning to the poem's initial imagery
imagery, the speaker reveals
how he has changed in the meantime, how he has deepened his
understanding of nature. Now he zooms in on what exactly the
frost's "secrete ministry" is. The speaker personifies the frost
as hanging frozen drops of rain as "silent icicles" from the roof.
One might even picture a little frosty creature (e.g., Jack Frost)
literally hanging icicles drop-by-drop from the house.
Finally, the speaker ends on an image that is equally, if more
subtly, magical. He describes the icicles "Quietly shining to the
quiet Moon." What's magical is that the speaker describes the
shining as "quiet," because shining is a visual image, while
"quietly" has to do with sound. The speaker poetically marries
sound and sight in this image, as if there is a quiet sound made
by the shining ice. Additionally, he conjures the similar silver
appearances of both the moon and the moonlit ice.
Altogether, the picture captures a kind of reverberation
between icicles and moon. Very different from summer's
"clothe[s]" of "greenness," this image also captures a deep and
powerful sense of peace. After a claustrophobic urban
childhood, the adult speaker now feels a reverberating
tranquility with the world around him, a tranquility he hopes his
child will someday feel as well.
SYMBOLS
FROST
In "Frost at Midnight," Frost symbolizes the
sacredness or divinity of nature.
Images of frost bookend the poem. At the beginning, the
speaker says, "The Frost performs its secret ministry, /
Unhelped by any wind." "[M]inistry" is the key word here. It
refers to the duties of a minister, or priest. In other words, the
speaker is personifying frost as a priest. As a result, the frost
seems to be up to something that is both sacred and
mysterious.
On a literal level, all that's happening is that ice is forming
silently outside. But for the speaker, there's something holy
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about this ice. As he goes on to elaborate, the speaker believes
that all of nature is part of the "eternal language" of God. As a
result, even frost can come to seem like one of God's priests.
At the end of the poem, the speaker describes how:
[...] the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang [rain drops] up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Here, the speaker fleshes out what exactly frost's "secret
ministry" is, whimsically imagining the priestly frost hanging
icicles drop by frozen drop from the edges of the roof. As
before, this image suggests that even the formation of icicles is
part of the sacred language of God. The image conveys a sense
of "sweet" peace, a sense that anyone who feels close to God is
also close to nature, and vice-versa.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-2: “The Frost performs its secret ministry, /
Unhelped by any wind.”
• Lines 73-75: “Or if the secret ministry of frost / Shall
hang them up in silent icicles, / Quietly shining to the
quiet Moon.”
SOOT
The film of soot in the fireplace symbolizes the
speaker's own mind and is also specifically linked to
his memories of isolation at boarding school.
In the first stanza, the speaker describes the soot as "the sole
unquiet thing" in the cabin. It "flutters" with "puny flaps and
freaks." These erratic movements make the speaker think of his
own mind. The soot is like an "Echo or mirror" of his "Spirit." He
feels that he, like soot, keeps fluttering around in his thoughts.
Rather than thinking clearly and deeply, and rather than
achieving a feeling of stillness and peace, the speaker's mind is
anxious, unsettled, jumpy. Thus, this early description of the
soot reflects how the poem itself will progress, not logically or
linearly, but in unpredictable fits and starts.
Additionally, the soot is linked to the speaker's memories of
boyhood, particularly boarding school. At school, he would also
stare into the fire, dreaming about his hometown. He was
homesick. According to Coleridge, the film of soot that forms
on a grate is colloquially known as the stranger, and it's
supposed to signal the arrival of an old friend. The speaker
hoped it might signal the arrival of someone from his home,
perhaps his sister. Again, then, the soot captures something
about the speaker's mind: this time, the power of his school day
memories and the sense of isolation associated with them.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:
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• Lines 15-27: “Only that film, which fluttered on the
grate, / Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. /
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature / Gives it dim
sympathies with me who live, / Making it a
companionable form, / Whose puny flaps and freaks the
idling Spirit / By its own moods interprets, every where /
Echo or mirror seeking of itself, / And makes a toy of
Thought. / But O! how oft, / How oft, at school,
with most believing mind, / Presageful, have I gazed upon
the bars, / To watch that fluttering / stranger / !”
CHURCH BELLS
In the speaker's memories of his home town, church
bells symbolize the connection between art, religion,
and the environment, as well as how external environments can
evoke powerful feelings within people.
As the speaker mentions in line 30, church bells were "the poor
man's only music." In this era before recorded music, people
who couldn't afford to hear live music mainly got to hear it at
church. This means that, for such people, art and religion were
closely connected.
Additionally, in this case, music isn't heard at the church but out
in the town as the church bells ring. This music fills the air,
soaking the environment in its suggestive sound. As a result,
art, religion, and the physical environment begin to fuse. This
provides an early example for the speaker of how all these
things can be connected. After all, the poem "Frost at Midnight"
itself is an attempt to use art to talk about how God and nature
are connected.
Additionally, the sound of the bells evokes a powerful feeling in
the speaker; the bells "stirred and haunted me, / With a wild
pleasure," he says. In fact, the bells seem full of the "articulate
sounds of things to come." That is, to the young speaker, the
bells sound like words from the future. Here, then, the sound of
church bells symbolizes how environments can suggest things
beyond themselves, such as the future (and later, God),
awakening powerful feelings in people.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:
• Lines 29-34: “the old church-tower, / Whose bells, the
poor man's only music, rang / From morn to evening, all
the hot Fair-day, / So sweetly, that they stirred and
haunted me / With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear /
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!”
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POETIC DEVICES
APOSTROPHE
Apostrophe is a central device in the second half of "Frost at
Midnight." Beginning in the third stanza, the speaker addresses
his sleeping infant directly. Although the baby is sleeping, and
so doesn't hear or respond to this address, this apostrophe
nonetheless conveys the speaker's deep love and hope for his
child. (Note that while the entire third to fourth stanzas are
apostrophe, we've specifically highlighted the moments where
the speaker explicitly begins and repeats this address—"Dear
babe," etc.)
The introduction of apostrophe in the third stanza represents a
significant shift in the poem. In the first two stanzas, the
speaker isn't explicitly talking to anyone. He simply begins by
describing the night: "The Frost performs its secret ministry, /
Unhelped by any wind." As with so many lyric poems, the
speaker is basically talking to the reader. In fact, the speaker
talks as if the reader is right there with him, as when he
describes the cry of a baby owl: "The owlet's cry / Came
loud—and hark, again! loud as before." In effect, the speaker
asks the reader to listen as the owl cries out again. The speaker
acts as if the reader can hear the owl too, as if the reader is
sitting next to him in the cottage. The first half of the poem,
then, becomes like one part of late night conversation between
speaker and reader—one reason that this poem is typically
classified as one of Coleridge's so-called conversation poems.
This changes in the second half of the poem. At the beginning of
the third stanza, the speaker directly address his child: "Dear
Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side." And again a few lines
later: "My babe so beautiful!" And again "But thou, my babe!"
Throughout the rest of the poem, the speaker talks specifically
to his child, telling the baby about his life, his views on religion
and education, and his hopes for the child. The poem shifts gear
from the speaker's reflections on his own life and feelings of
isolation (such as sitting up at night while everyone is asleep, or
being homesick at boarding school as a child). Now, the speaker
devotes his attention to another life, the life of his child.
Of course, the sleeping infant doesn't hear the speaker. As a
result, this apostrophe isn't meant to literally communicate
with the child. Rather it represents a change in the speaker's
mindset as he opens himself up to hopes about nature and
spirituality. It functions almost as a kind of prayer or blessing, in
which the speaker articulates certain goals for his child—both
so that the speaker will be better able to achieve them, and
perhaps hoping that God will hear and make them come true.
Where Apostrophe appears in the poem:
• Line 45: “Dear Babe,”
• Line 49: “My babe so beautiful!”
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• Lines 55-55: “But / thou / , my babe!”
• Line 66: “Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,”
ALLITERATION
"Frost at Midnight" is usually considered one of Coleridge's so-
called conversation poems, meaning the speaker talks to the
reader as if having a conversation. In comparison to other
poetry of the time, the language is plainer and more informal.
As a result, alliter
alliteration
ation doesn't play a very noticeable role. And
even when it does appear, it's often in a toned-down manner.
All the same, this toned-down alliteration (some of which we've
highlighted here) is still crucial for how the poem functions. It
allows the speaker bring out the beauty in poem's relatively
plainspoken or simple language. Additionally, it helps the
speaker draw attention to moments of heightened emotion and
specific images.
The first four lines don't use much alliteration. Rather, they
convey a rustic plainness, so that the language almost sounds
like prose. Then in lines 5-7, however, the speaker introduces
/s/ alliteration (a form of sibilance
sibilance):
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
This repetition of the /s/ sound (bolstered by the consonance of
"ssuitss," "Absstrusser," and "peaccefully") heightens the language's
rhythm. It's as if the speaker introduces it to assure the
skeptical reader that this is in fact still a poem—that even this
new kind of informal writing can have its own lyrical quality to
it. Additionally, the quietness of the /s/ sound helps the speaker
evoke the solitude and his "slumber[ing]" child, weaving a
unified picture of the scene.
Sometimes, repeated sounds draw out the speaker's
excitement, such as when the speaker exclaims "My babe so
beautiful!" Other times, the speaker uses alliteration to draw
attention to certain images. For instance, /f/ and /m/ sounds
capture the fluttering of soot on the grate of the fireplace:
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks [...]
Here, the /f/ sounds themselves are like "fflutters," "fflaps," and
"ffreaks," or erratic and flimsy movements. Additionally, the /m/
sound helps link "m motion" and "mme," capturing how the speaker
feels so connected to the soot's activities. As this example
shows, the speaker isn't afraid of break out the alliteration
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when the time is right, emphasizing his own strong emotions.
• Line 75: “Quietly,” “quiet”
Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem:
ASSONANCE
• Line 2: “cry”
• Line 3: “Came” As with alliter
alliteration
ation, assonance plays a quiet and sparse role in
• Line 5: “solitude,” “suits” the poem. The speaker doesn't go for a lot of flourishes in terms
• Line 6: “save,” “side” of sound. Rather, he uses assonance as a subtle means of
• Line 7: “slumbers” creating a cohesive feel to the language.
• Line 8: “calm,” “calm” For instance, in the first line the long /ee/ sound in "seecret
• Line 9: “strange” ministryy" gives this phrase a sense of unity and draws attention
• Line 10: “silentness,” “Sea” to it. This unity adds to the phrase's own "secret" and
• Line 14: “Lies,” “low” mysterious quality. The "secret ministry" of frost is the process
• Line 15: “film,” “fluttered” of frost's formation, as water vapor in the air slowly condenses
• Line 16: “flutters” into ice crystals on the ground. Yet the sound of this phrases
• Line 17: “Methinks,” “motion” evokes something even more mysterious, more sacred. As the
• Line 18: “me” speaker will come to argue, all natural phenomena are signs of
• Line 19: “Making,” “form” God, so it makes sense that the phrase captures some of that
• Line 20: “flaps,” “freaks” sacredness.
• Line 21: “moods,” “every”
• Line 22: “Echo,” “mirror” Another clear moment of assonance comes in lines 5-6:
• Line 23: “makes”
• Line 25: “most,” “mind” Have left me to
o that solitu
ude, which sui
uits
• Line 30: “music” Abstru
user muusings [...]
• Line 31: “morn”
• Line 32: “sweetly,” “stirred” This resounding /oo/ sound ropes together the speaker's
• Line 33: “With,” “wild,” “mine” description of his solitude. In the deep bass of the /oo/ vowel,
• Line 34: “Most” these lines seem to capture the peculiar feeling that comes
• Line 38: “mine” with being up late at light, pondering obscure thoughts—a sort
• Line 39: “mock,” “study,” “swimming” of melancholy sweetness.
• Line 40: “Save,” “snatched” Later, the long /ee/ sounds of lines 66 and 69 add brightness
• Line 41: “hasty,” “still,” “heart” and melody to the speaker's hope for his child's future:
• Line 42: “still,” “see,” “stranger's”
• Line 43: “sister,” “beloved” Therefore all sea
easons shall bee sweet
eet to thee
ee,
• Line 44: “both” [...]
• Line 45: “Babe,” “sleepest,” “by,” “side” With gree
eenness, [...]
• Line 46: “breathings”
• Line 49: “babe,” “beautiful”
Finally, the long /i/ assonance in the poem's final two lines ends
• Line 50: “thus”
the poem on an especially lyrical, reverent note, drawing
• Line 51: “think,” “that,” “thou,” “learn,” “lore”
readers' attention to the still, wintry imagery at hand:
• Line 54: “saw,” “sky,” “stars”
• Line 55: “babe,” “breeze”
Shall hang them up in siilent icicles,
• Line 56: “By,” “beneath,” “crags”
Quiietly shiining to the quiiet Moon.
• Line 57: “beneath,” “clouds”
• Line 58: “bulk,” “both”
• Line 59: “so,” “shalt,” “see” Much of the poem's use of assonance functions similarly:
• Line 60: “shapes,” “sounds” relatively muted, yet still playing a role in conjuring the poem's
• Line 64: “mould” many moods and images.
• Line 65: “make”
• Line 66: “seasons,” “sweet” Where Assonance appears in the poem:
• Line 67: “summer” • Line 1: “secret,” “ministry”
• Line 68: “sit,” “sing” • Line 2: “any”
• Line 69: “Betwixt,” “snow,” “bare,” “branch” • Line 4: “rest”
• Line 71: “Smokes,” “sun-thaw”

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make language sound this natural and this good.
• Line 5: “left,” “to,” “solitude,” “suits” The sounds also accentuate what the speaker describes. For
• Line 6: “Abstruser,” “musings,” “my,” “side” instance, the delicate hiss of /s/ sounds in the first line mimics
• Line 7: “peacefully” the delicate task of frost, as it quietly forms on the landscape
• Line 8: “indeed” outside. Then, the percussive /c/ sound conveys the sudden
• Line 9: “meditation,” “strange” intrusion of the owl's sound on this delicate landscape.
• Line 10: “extreme,” “Sea”
• Line 14: “Lies,” “fire,” “quivers” Sibilance is especially common throughout the poem. Often, as
• Line 15: “film,” “which” with the description of the frost, it captures the quietness of
• Line 18: “Gives,” “it,” “dim,” “sympathies,” “with,” “live” the night, as in lines 8-10:
• Line 26: “Presageful,” “gazed”
• Line 27: “stranger” [...] so calm, that it dissturbs
• Line 36: “me,” “sleep,” “sleep,” “dreams” And vexxess meditation with itss strange
• Line 37: “all,” “following” And exxtreme silentness ss.
• Line 38: “Awed,” “mine,” “eye”
• Line 39: “mock,” “on” Here, the hissing /s/ has a kind of eerie quality to it, just like the
• Line 40: “half,” “snatched” "extreme silentness of the night." Sometimes, when it's so silent,
• Line 42: “stranger's,” “face” people start to hear their own heart beating, their own breath,
• Line 44: “both,” “clothed” a slight ringing in the ears, etc., and the /s/ hiss mimics that: the
• Line 45: “Babe,” “sleepest,” “cradled,” “by,” “my,” “side” sound of simply existing. Overall, the frequent sibilance in the
• Line 46: “breathings,” “deep” poem drapes a hush over its atmosphere, reflecting the
• Line 48: “pauses,” “thought” speaker's quiet, late-night contemplation.
• Line 53: “mid,” “dim”
• Line 54: “saw,” “nought” Where Consonance appears in the poem:
• Line 58: “Which,” “image,” “in”
• Line 62: “eternity,” “teach” • Line 1: “Frost,” “performs,” “its,” “secret,” “ministry”
• Line 63: “Himself,” “in,” “things,” “in,” “himself” • Line 2: “Unhelped,” “any,” “wind,” “owlet's,” “cry”
• Line 65: “Thy,” “spirit,” “by,” “giving,” “it” • Line 3: “Came,” “loud,” “hark,” “before”
• Line 66: “seasons,” “be,” “sweet,” “thee” • Line 5: “solitude,” “suits”
• Line 68: “greenness” • Line 6: “Abstruser,” “musings,” “save,” “my,” “side”
• Line 73: “secret,” “ministry” • Line 7: “My,” “cradled,” “slumbers,” “peacefully”
• Line 74: “silent,” “icicles” • Line 8: “calm,” “so,” “calm,” “disturbs”
• Line 75: “Quietly,” “shining,” “quiet” • Line 9: “vexes,” “strange”
• Line 10: “extreme,” “silentness,” “Sea,” “hill”
• Line 11: “populous,” “village,” “Sea,” “hill”
CONSONANCE
• Line 12: “all,” “numberless,” “life”
While the poem keeps alliter
alliteration
ation and assonance fairly sparse, • Line 13: “Inaudible,” “blue,” “flame”
consonance is much more widespread (we've highlighted some • Line 14: “Lies,” “low,” “burnt,” “fire,” “quivers”
of the clearest consonance here). The pervasiveness of • Line 15: “Only,” “film,” “fluttered,” “grate”
repeated consonants adds a great deal of texture to the poem's • Line 16: “Still,” “flutters,” “sole”
language, accentuating the speaker's many twists and turns of • Line 17: “Methinks,” “motion,” “hush”
thought. • Line 18: “dim,” “sympathies,” “me”
The first three lines immediately display the role consonance • Line 19: “Making,” “companionable,” “form”
will play in the poem: • Line 20: “flaps,” “freaks,” “idling,” “Spirit”
• Line 21: “interprets,” “every,” “where”
The Frosst perf
rforms
ms itss secrret minisstrry, • Line 22: “mirror”
Un
nhellped by an ny win
nd. The owllet's cry • Line 25: “most,” “mind”
Came loud [...] • Line 27: “fluttering,” “stranger”
• Line 28: “unclosed,” “lids,” “already”
Here, /f/, /r/, /s/, /m/, /n/, /l/, and /c/ sounds form a tight-knit • Line 30: “man's,” “music”
fabric. They give the language a feeling of cohesion and focus. • Line 31: “morn”
Although the language is informal—by 18th-century standards • Line 32: “So,” “sweetly,” “stirred,” “haunted”
• Line 33: “With,” “wild,” “pleasure,” “falling,” “mine”
at least—the carefully organized sounds of this passage convey
• Line 34: “Most,” “like,” “articulate”
a great deal of craftsmanship, suggesting that it takes skill to

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comma draws attention to “hark,” which means listen, as if the
• Line 35: “So,” “soothing,” “dreamt” speaker is asking the reader to listen to the owl as well. And
• Line 36: “Lulled,” “me,” “sleep,” “sleep,” “prolonged,” “my,” finally the exclamation mark conveys the speaker’s enthusiasm
“dreams” over the sound of the owl and his passion for nature in general.
• Line 37: “all,” “following”
Exclamation marks appear fairly often in the poem as caesurae.
• Line 38: “stern,” “preceptor's,” “face”
Many times, as with the example above, they come in the
• Line 39: “Fixed,” “mock,” “study,” “my,” “swimming,” “book”
middle of the sentence. Line 26-27 is another example: "To
• Line 40: “Save,” “snatched”
watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft / With unclosed lids."
• Line 41: “hasty,” “glance,” “still,” “leaped,” “up”
Punctuation like this allows the speaker to capture a sense of
• Line 42: “still,” “hoped,” “see,” “stranger's,” “face”
excitement without ending the sentence. As a result, such
• Line 44: “clothed,” “alike”
moments have a more conversational feel: people's voices
• Line 47: “intersperséd,” “vacancies”
• Line 49: “babe,” “beautiful” often bounce around as they talk, exclaiming things mid-
• Line 50: “tender,” “gladness,” “thee” sentence. Punctuation like this was also more common in the
• Line 51: “think,” “that,” “thou,” “shalt,” “learn,” “far,” “other,” 18th century, when poem was written. Rather than being non-
“lore” grammatical, it's a legitimate way for the speaker to add
• Line 52: “far,” “other,” “scenes,” “For,” “reared” expressiveness to the language.
• Line 53: “great,” “mid,” “dim” Caesurae like these also help prevent the poem's blank verse
• Line 54: “sky,” “stars” from becoming monotonous. They break up the iambic
• Line 55: “babe,” “shalt,” “wander,” “like,” “breeze” pentameter (five feet per line, each with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm)
• Line 56: “By,” “lakes,” “sandy,” “shores,” “crags” into chunks of various size, so that the poem has starts, stops,
• Line 57: “ancient,” “mountain,” “clouds” and stutters, as well as lines of unbroken language. Again, these
• Line 58: “bulk,” “both,” “lakes,” “shores” various sizes also add to the poem's expressiveness, capturing
• Line 59: “so,” “shalt,” “see” how people speak in long and short breaths, pausing here,
• Line 60: “shapes,” “sounds,” “intelligible” repeating themselves there, and sometimes going on at length
• Line 61: “eternal,” “language” without a pause.
• Line 62: “Utters,” “eternity,” “teach”
• Line 66: “all,” “seasons,” “shall,” “sweet,” “thee” Where Caesur
Caesuraa appears in the poem:
• Line 67: “Whether,” “summer,” “clothe,” “general,” “earth”
• Line 68: “greenness,” “redbreast,” “sit,” “sing” • Line 2: “wind. The”
• Line 69: “Betwixt,” “tufts,” “snow,” “bare,” “branch” • Line 3: “loud—and hark, again! loud”
• Line 70: “apple-tree,” “while,” “night-thatch” • Line 4: “cottage, all”
• Line 71: “Smokes,” “sun-thaw,” “whether,” “eave-drops,” • Line 5: “solitude, which”
“fall” • Line 6: “musings: save”
• Line 72: “only,” “trances,” “blast” • Line 8: “indeed! so”
• Line 73: “secret,” “ministry,” “frost” • Line 10: “silentness. Sea, hill, and”
• Line 74: “silent,” “icicles” • Line 11: “village! Sea, and hill, and”
• Line 75: “Quietly,” “quiet” • Line 13: “dreams! the”
• Line 14: “low-burnt fire, and”
CAESURA • Line 15: “film, which”
• Line 16: “there, the”
As with many poems written in blank vverse
erse, “Frost at Midnight”
• Line 17: “Methinks, its”
relies on caesur
caesuraa to create various textures and rhythms • Line 21: “interprets, every”
throughout. This is especially important because the poem’s • Line 24: “O! how”
language is supposed to mimic someone talking, with all the • Line 25: “oft, at school, with”
starts and stops and stutters that come with everyday speech. • Line 26: “Presageful, have”
A great example of how caesura can mimic the rhythms of • Lines 27-27: “stranger / ! and”
everyday speech comes in line 3, when the speaker hears an • Line 28: “lids, already”
owl: “The owlet’s cry / Came loud—and hark, again! loud as • Line 29: “birth-place, and”
before.” Here the speaker uses an em-dash, comma, and • Line 30: “bells, the”
exclamation point all as caesurae. These different punctuation • Line 31: “evening, all”
marks capture the different phases of the speaker’s reaction to • Line 32: “sweetly, that”
the owl, and the different kinds of pauses he takes. First, the • Line 33: “pleasure, falling”
em-dash captures how the cry interrupts the speaker. Then, the • Line 35: “I, till,” “things, I”

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These first three lines here are all enjambed. As a result, the
• Line 36: “sleep, and” individual phrases (bracketed above for clarity) vary in length.
• Line 38: “face, mine” Their lengths can measured by how many stresses they have:
• Line 40: “opened, and” two stresses in the first phrase, three in the second, four in the
• Line 41: “glance, and” third, three in fourth, and eight in the fifth (2–3–4–3–8).
• Line 43: “Townsman, or aunt, or” Although these phrases aren't all the same length, they each
• Line 45: “Babe, that” sound natural and each can fit into a single breath.
• Line 49: “beautiful! it” Enjambment, then, helps convey that the poem's speaker is a
• Line 50: “gladness, thus” living, breathing person—and that the language is alive as well.
• Line 52: “scenes! For”
• Line 53: “city, pent” Where Enjambment appears in the poem:
• Lines 55-55: “thou / , my babe! shalt”
• Line 56: “shores, beneath” • Lines 2-3: “cry / Came”
• Line 57: “mountain, and” • Lines 4-5: “rest, / Have”
• Line 59: “crags: so” • Lines 5-6: “suits / Abstruser”
• Line 61: “language, which” • Lines 6-7: “side / My”
• Line 62: “Utters, who” • Lines 8-9: “disturbs / And”
• Line 63: “all, and” • Lines 9-10: “strange / And”
• Line 64: “Teacher! he” • Lines 13-14: “flame / Lies”
• Line 65: “spirit, and” • Lines 15-16: “grate, / Still”
• Line 68: “greenness, or” • Lines 17-18: “nature / Gives”
• Line 70: “apple-tree, while” • Lines 20-21: “Spirit / By ”
• Line 71: “sun-thaw; whether” • Lines 21-22: “where / Echo”
• Lines 27-28: “oft / With”
ENJAMBMENT • Lines 28-29: “dreamt / Of”
• Lines 30-31: “rang / From”
Like caesur
caesuraa, enjambment plays an important role in the poem's • Lines 32-33: “me / With”
use of blank vverse
erse. Enjambment allows the poem to have its • Lines 33-34: “ear / Most”
own flow. Rather than going on and on in monotonous end- • Lines 35-36: “dreamt, / Lulled”
stopped phrases, the speaker is able to craft sentences that • Lines 38-39: “eye / Fixed”
have a sense of movement and unpredictability—much like • Lines 40-41: “snatched / A”
actual speech. • Lines 47-48: “vacancies / And”
Enjambment pulls readers forward through the poem, creating • Lines 49-50: “heart / With”
anticipation at the ends of lines when the grammatical meaning • Lines 50-51: “thee, / And”
isn't complete and the reader has to move on to the next line • Lines 52-53: “reared / In”
for understanding. Take lines 59-63, where enjambment adds • Lines 55-56: “breeze / By”
momentum and excitement to the speaker's description of • Lines 56-57: “crags / Of”
God's "eternal language": • Lines 58-59: “shores / And”
• Lines 59-60: “ hear / The”
[...] so shalt thou see and hear • Lines 60-61: “intelligible / Of”
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible • Lines 61-62: “God / Utters,”
Of that eternal language, which thy God • Lines 62-63: “teach / Himself”
Utters
Utters, who from eternity doth teach • Lines 64-65: “mould / Thy”
Himself in all, and all things in himself. • Lines 67-68: “earth / With”
• Lines 68-69: “sing / Betwixt”
More subtly, the combination of enjambment and caesura • Lines 69-70: “branch / Of”
allows the speaker to take breaths of different lengths. For • Lines 70-71: “night-thatch / Smokes”
• Lines 71-72: “fall / Heard”
example, look at lines 4-7:
• Lines 73-74: “frost / Shall”
[The inmates of my cottage,] [all at rest,]
[Have left me to that solitude,] [which suits SIMILE
Abstruser musings:] [save that at my side Because the poem is meant to be a kind informal conversation
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.] in which the speaker reflects on his life and the world around
him, the speaker tends to stay pretty literal. The magic of the

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poem is in how it moves about unpredictably and finds spiritual
insights in everyday scenes, rather than in any extravagant
comparison. As a result, the few similes in the poem stand out
all the more. In fact, taken together, the poem's similes chart
the development of the speaker's understanding of his
relationship with the world around him.
In the first paragraph, the speaker describes:
[...] Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams
dreams!
Here, the speaker is talking about how there is all this life
around him, but it's all silent. Living things, especially at night,
are isolated from each other. Other lives are as inaccessible as
other people's dreams. This first comparison captures the
sensation of quietness and isolation that the speaker feels at
the beginning of the poem. He is attuned to the world around
him, but he also feels separate from it: the world's silence
speaks volumes.
Next, in the second stanza, the speaker describes hearing
church bells at the fair as a boy. To him, the sound of these bells
was "Most liklikee articulate sounds of things to come!" In other
words, the church bells used to fill the speaker with
anticipation. To him, their music was like words from the future.
In contrast to the previous simile, which emphasized isolation,
this simile captures how a person's environment can seem full
of meaning. Later, the speaker will even suggest that all of
nature points to God.
In the third stanza, the speaker describes his hopes for his child,
saying, "thou, my babe! shalt wander liklikee a breeze." Here, the
speaker emphasizes freedom. Just as a breeze can travel all
over the landscape, by "lakes and sandy shores" as well as
"ancient mountain," the speaker hopes for a similar kind of
freedom for his child. On a literal level, the speaker wants his
child to be able to explore nature. On a more figurative level,
the speaker hopes his child will feel connected to nature and
have the intellectual freedom to explore many interests. Now,
the environment becomes a space of freedom and discovery.
Thus, in each of these three similes, the speaker describes the
evolution of his thought, from a feeling of isolation to hopes of
profound connection with nature.
Where Simile appears in the poem:
• Lines 11-13: “Sea, and hill, and wood, / With all the
numberless goings-on of life, / Inaudible as dreams!”
• Lines 33-34: “falling on mine ear / Most like articulate
sounds of things to come!”
• Lines 55-55: “But / thou / , my babe! shalt wander like a
breeze”
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IMAGERY
Imagery is essential to "Frost at Midnight." At every step of the
way, the speaker carefully describes the world around him and
how it affects his emotions (or, later, how it will affect his child).
In fact, the poem basically switches back and forth between
two types of descriptions: imagistic description of the speaker's
environment, and abstract descriptions of the speaker's
feelings that result from the environment.
The second half of the first stanza is a good example of this.
First, the speaker describes the dying fire and the soot on the
grate:
[...] the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
In these four lines, the speaker precisely describes the
fireplace. First he introduces the striking image of "the thin
blue flame," the remains the fire. Then he introduces the motion
of the film of soot which "flutters" and is unquiet." In the
following lines, the speaker will go into how the soot makes him
feel. Specifically, the soot captures the speaker's own state of
mind which is also "unquiet"—that is, anxious.
One notable exception to this pattern is the last stanza, which
consists simply of a list of peaceful natural images without any
resulting descriptions of his subsequent emotions. The speaker
just introduces them as "sweet." He then goes on to precisely
describe different seasonal occurrences, such as a robin singing
"Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch," or rain dripping
from the roof amid a windy storm.
Rather than elaborate on how these images would make
someone feel, however, the speaker leaves that interpretation
up to the reader. Each image conveys its own unique sense of
peace. Each is, according to the speaker, a little piece of the
language of God. Ultimately, the speaker lets that peace and
Godliness resonate with the reader, rather than elaborating on
it.
Where Imagery appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-3: “The Frost performs its secret ministry, /
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry / Came loud—and
hark, again! loud as before.”
• Lines 6-7: “at my side / My cradled infant slumbers
peacefully.”
• Lines 13-16: “the thin blue flame / Lies on my low-burnt
fire, and quivers not; / Only that film, which fluttered on
the grate, / Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.”
• Line 20: “Whose puny flaps and freaks”
• Lines 26-27: “have I gazed upon the bars, / To watch that
fluttering / stranger / !”
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• Lines 29-31: “the old church-tower, / Whose bells, the
poor man's only music, rang / From morn to evening, all
the hot Fair-day,”
• Lines 38-40: “Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine
eye / Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: /
Save if the door half opened, ”
• Lines 45-46: “Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my
side, / Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,”
• Lines 53-54: “In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, /
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.”
• Lines 55-59: “shalt wander like a breeze / By lakes and
sandy shores, beneath the crags / Of ancient mountain,
and beneath the clouds, / Which image in their bulk both
lakes and shores / And mountain crags:”
• Lines 67-75: “Whether the summer clothe the general
earth / With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing /
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch / Of mossy
apple-tree, while the night-thatch / Smokes in the sun-
thaw; whether the eave-drops fall / Heard only in the
trances of the blast, / Or if the secret ministry of frost /
Shall hang them up in silent icicles, / Quietly shining to
the quiet Moon.”
PERSONIFICATION
There are a few important instances of personification in "Frost
at Midnight." One comes at the beginning and end of the poem,
when the speaker references the "secret ministry" of frost.
"[M]inistry" refers to the tasks performed by a minister (i.e., a
priest or cleric). The frost's "secret ministry," then, is a
mysterious and sacred act that the frost goes about in the
middle of the night. Here, the speaker compares the frost to a
priest, and the frost's act of forming ice to a priest's
responsibilities.
At the end of the poem, coming full circle, the speaker
elaborates on these responsibilities:
[...] whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Here, "eave-drops" refers to raindrops dripping from the roof.
The speaker imagines the frost "hang[ing]" those drops from
the roof as icicles. This beautiful and delicate image suggests
the frost's sacred task is simply to freeze things. In other words,
the simple act of frost forming on the landscape is sacred. The
speaker argues earlier in the poem that nature is the language,
and the personification of frost as a priest captures that
sentiment: frost becomes a representative of God.
The other use of personification comes in the speaker's
identification with the fluttering soot on the grate of the
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fireplace. The speaker describes this soot as:
[...] the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Here, the speaker feels like the motion of the soot captures his
own state of mind. "[U]nquiet" can mean not quiet, but it can
also mean anxious. The speaker suggests that the soot is
anxious or jittery, just like him. As a result, the soot feels like a
"companionable form," a friend.
These two examples of personification capture how the
speaker thinks through his relationship with the world around
him, as he comes to understand his own mind and his ideas
about religion.
Where P
Personification
ersonification appears in the poem:
• Line 1: “The Frost performs its secret ministry,”
• Lines 16-19: “the sole unquiet thing. / Methinks, its
motion in this hush of nature / Gives it dim sympathies
with me who live, / Making it a companionable form,”
• Lines 27-27: “To watch that fluttering / stranger / !”
• Lines 73-75: “Or if the secret ministry of frost / Shall
hang them up in silent icicles, / Quietly shining to the
quiet Moon.”
REPETITION
There are many instances of repetition throughout "Frost at
Midnight." These instances fall into roughly four categories:
diacope
diacope, refr
refrain
ain, antimetabole
antimetabole, and par
parallelism
allelism.
Diacope is the most pervasive form of repetition in the poem.
There are many instances where the speaker repeats a word
for emphasis. Many times, this conveys how the speaker is
caught up on some particular image or emotion. For instance,
the speaker's repetition of "calm" in line 8 conveys the "extreme
silentness" of the night, and the speaker's evolving
understanding of it.
Similarly, in lines 24-25 the speaker repeats "how oft, / How
oft" (more specifically an example of epizeuxis
epizeuxis) as he
remembers gazing into the fire as a schoolboy. This repetition
conveys how powerfully the memory affects him. And in lines
15-16, the repetition of "fluttered" and "flutters" (also an
example of polyptoton
polyptoton) captures the speaker's obsession with
the way the film of ash moves on the fireplace's grate.
The most noticeably repeated whole phrase in the poem is line
1: "The Frost performs its secret ministry," which reappears in
line 73 as "the secret ministry of frost." This repeated phrase
(slightly modified) acts as a refrain of sorts, a recurring line that
adds a circular quality to the poem. Just as verse and chorus
provide a structure to songs, the repeated phrase helps clarify
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that poem's structure. The poet's mind has wandered from the
present's winter evening into his past, his hopes for his child,
and his thoughts on God, all the way back to the present's
winter evening. This circularity might have been easy to miss if
the speaker didn't include such a noticeable repetition.
There are slightly more complicated instances of repetition as
well. First, in stanza 1, the speaker says that his child's breath"
[...] disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness
Here, the speaker uses parallelism, because the sentence
employs similarly structured phrases: "disturbs / And vexes
meditation" and "strange / And extreme silentness." As with the
instances of repetition described above, this repetitive
phrasing captures how the speaker gets caught up with the
eerie silence of the night—just like someone in a conversation
who can't get over something.
Then, in lines 62-64, the speaker uses antimetabole:
[...] who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself
himself.
This mirror-image structure captured the two-fold relationship
the speaker is talking about: all natural things teach people
about God, and all natural things ultimately come from God.
Where Repetition appears in the poem:
• Line 1: “The Frost performs its secret ministry,”
• Line 8: “calm,” “calm”
• Lines 8-10: “that it disturbs / And vexes meditation with
its strange / And extreme silentness”
• Line 10: “Sea, hill, and wood,”
• Line 11: “Sea, and hill, and wood,”
• Line 15: “fluttered”
• Line 16: “flutters”
• Lines 24-25: “how oft, / How oft,”
• Line 27: “oft”
• Line 35: “dreamt”
• Line 36: “dreams”
• Line 40: “and”
• Line 41: “and,” “still”
• Line 42: “still”
• Line 43: “or,” “or”
• Line 51: “And”
• Line 52: “And”
• Line 54: “And”
• Line 56: “beneath”
• Line 57: “beneath”
• Line 63: “Himself in all, and all things in himself.”
• Line 73: “the secret ministry of frost”
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VOCABULARY
Frost (Line 1, Line 73) - A thin layer of ice that forms on the
landscape overnight.
Ministry (Line 1, Line 73) - The tasks and responsibilities of a
minister or priest.
Owlet (Line 2) - A baby owl.
Inmates (Line 4) - Residents; other people who live in the
cottage.
Cottage (Line 4) - A small country house.
Abstruser (Line 6) - Abstruse means obscure, murky, unclear;
the speaker's thoughts are murkier than normal.
Musings (Line 6) - Thoughts.
Vexes (Line 9) - Interrupts; makes difficult.
Meditation (Line 9) - Thought; introspection.
Wood (Line 10, Line 11) - Forest.
Film (Line 15) - A thin layer—of soot, in this case.
Grate (Line 15) - The bars in a fireplace that the fire rests on.
Sympathies (Line 18) - Feelings of connection or similarity.
Freaks (Line 20) - Erratic movements.
Idling (Line 20) - Unoccupied.
Spirit (Line 20) - Mind.
Toy (Line 23) - A plaything; something inconsequential,
manipulable, amusing.
Oft (Line 24, Line 25, Line 27) - Often.
Presageful (Line 26) - Having a feeling of anticipation or a
sense of future events.
Grazed (Line 26, Line 35) - Looked deeply.
Stranger (Line 27, Line 42) - According to Coleridge, this is a
colloquial term for the film of soot that a fire leaves behind. It is
supposed to signal the arrival of an old friend.
Unclosed Lids (Line 28) - Open eyes.
Morn (Line 31, Line 37) - Morning.
Fair-day (Line 31) - A special day-long festival or market.
Mine (Line 33, Line 38) - My.
Articulate Sounds (Line 34) - The speaker is saying that these
"sounds" are almost like words.
Soothing (Line 35) - Calming.
Brooded (Line 37) - Thought about, in a morose or inconclusive
way.
Preceptor (Line 38) - Teacher.
Swimming (Line 39) - Whirling. Because the speaker isn't able
to focus, the text in the book appears fuzzy, indistinct, or even
disorienting—as if it is has a whirling motion to it.
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Babe (Line 45, Line 49, Line 55) - Baby. world.
Intersperséd (Line 47) - Scattered, or having gaps. The
accented "é" means that the final syllable should be Furthermore, each stanza break represents a leap within the
pronounced: "in-ter-sper-sed." speaker's mind. For instance, between the first and second
stanzas the speaker leaps from describing his fireplace to
Vacancies (Line 47) - Empty spaces. delving into an old memory.
Lore (Line 51) - Old teachings that have been handed down, Additionally, this form has a long and prestigious history.
often with the connotation of being spiritual, mythical, or Coleridge was perhaps most explicitly inspired by John Milton's
mystical in nature. use of blank vverse
erse paragraphs in his epic poem Par
aradise
adise Lost
Lost.
Pent 'mid cloisters dim (Line 53) - Trapped in a darkly lit However, while Milton's language captured the epic conflict
school. between good and evil at the beginning of the world,
Nought (Line 54) - Nothing. Coleridge's language is meant to convey the twists at turns of
an individual mind on one ordinary evening. As a result, it puts
Crags (Line 56, Line 59) - Cliffs.
the flexibility of Milton's form to new use.
Image (Line 58) - Capture, reflect; the size of the clouds is
similar to size of the mountains and lakes. METER
Bulk (Line 58) - Giant size. "Frost at Midnight" is written in blank vverse
erse, or unrh
unrhymed
ymed
iambic pentameter (meaning there are five feet per line, each
Intelligible (Line 60) - Understandable, word-like.
with a da-DUM
DUM beat pattern). The first line is a straightforward
Mould (Line 64) - Mold; shape. example of the poem's meter
meter:
General earth (Line 67) - The whole planet.
The Frost | performs
forms | its se
se- | cret min
min- | istry
try
Betwixt (Line 69) - Between.
Night-thatch (Line 70) - Thatch is a straw roof. Night-thatch is Iambic pentameter mimics the rhythms of spoken English, and
presumably such a roof that froze overnight. thus makes sense in a poem meant to feel conversational. Much
Sun-thaw (Line 71) - The melting that happens under sunlight. of the poem follows this pattern fairly faithfully. By hewing
Eave-drops (Line 71) - Rain drops dripping from the eaves, or closely to the meter, the poem provides a sense of regularity as
edges of the roof. the speaker's thoughts leap through memories and
observations.
Trances (Line 72) - A trance is a state of hypnosis or mental
blankness. Additionally, the poem's extensive use of enjambment and
caesur
caesuraa helps carve up the stable meter in interesting ways. For
Blast (Line 72) - Strong wind. instance, here's lines 8-10:

'Tis calm | indeed

deed! | so calm
calm, | that it | disturbs
sturbs
FORM, METER, & RHYME And vex- | es med
med- | ita
ta- | tion with | its str
strange
ange
And ex- | treme si
si- | lentness. | Sea
Sea, hill
hill, | and wood
wood,
FORM
"Frost at Midnight" has 75 lines broken up into in four Here, although the first two lines continue to maintain a
unrh
unrhymed
ymed verse paragraphs. As this phrase suggests, verse steadfast iambic pentameter, caesura and enjambment break
paragraphs are a lot like prose paragraphs except they have things up so that they don't feel boring or monotonous.
line-breaks. They are stanzas of unequal length that help break
Next, notice how the third line does vary the meter, particularly
up the poem into more manageable chunks.
by bunching stresses. The second and fourth feet are both
By writing in this way, the poem emphasizes its somewhat spondees (DUM
DUM-DUM DUM). This creates an emphatic effect that
informal language. Rather than setting out with stanzas of pre- mirrors that speaker's growing sense of unease. The
determined length, the poem works more intuitively. Each condensed stress captures the "extreme silentness" of the
stanza is roughly unified in what it's talking about: landscape. Similarly, the stresses of "Sea
Sea, hill
hill, and wood
wood"
suggest the speaker almost exclaims this phrase. He is suddenly
• The first is full of descriptions of the speaker's jerked out of his innermost thoughts, and instead passionately
cottage; evokes the surrounding landscape.
• The second describes the speaker's childhood;
• The third addresses the speaker's hopes for his There are moments like this throughout the poem. Although
child; the speaker mostly sticks closely to the meter, he's not afraid to
• The fourth is full of descriptions of the natural deviate for emphasis or to add some variety.

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RHYME SCHEME
"Frost at Midnight" does not rh
rhyme
yme. Because the poem
attempts to capture some of the informal qualities of
conversational English, while also depicting the twists and
turns of the speaker's thoughts, rhyme would only be a
hindrance. It would seem artificial, given that people don't
usually follow rhyme schemes when they're talking to each
other or thinking to themselves!
Additionally, Coleridge was partly inspired here by the blank
verse of John Milton's epic poem Par aradise
adise Lost
Lost. By rejecting
rhyme (a choice that was controversial at the time), Milton was
able to craft a fluid and sinewy kind of language, a language that
was full of interesting variety in terms of its grammar and
arrangement of words. By embracing a similarly rhyme-less
form, Coleridge is able to craft sentences that are uniquely
his—that bear that stamp of his own unique thought processes.
SPEAKER
The speaker of "Frost at Midnight" is often taken to be
Coleridge himself (which is why we've used masculine
pronouns throughout this guide), though it doesn't necessarily
have to be. However, the speaker is clearly someone who has
had many of same life experiences as Coleridge, such as going
to boarding school in London and caring for a new-born child
while living in a cottage.
Furthermore, the style of the poem is meant to emphasize that
this is not some generic speaker, but a specific person with
specific life experiences. Some poems are written as if they
could be spoken by almost anyone (like Shakespeare's "Sonnet
18
18," or Emily Dickinson's "II felt a funer
funeral,
al, in m
myy Br
Brain
ain," or T.S.
Eliot's "The
The WWaste
aste Land
Land"). Coleridge's poem, however, clearly
has a flesh-and-blood speaker with a unique biography. In this
way, "Frost at Midnight" has sometimes been thought of as an
early example of so-called confessional poetry, poetry that
explicitly takes the events of the poet's life as its focus.
Again, though, it's not necessary to identify the poem
completely with Coleridge. A reader doesn't need to know
every detail of Coleridge's biography to appreciate the poem.
Rather, a reader enjoys the poem because it gives the sense of
getting to know a particular person, of this person intimately
revealing their thoughts and feelings as they occur. In other
words, for the reader, the poem is a way to get to know
Coleridge—or at the very least, to get to know the voice that
Coleridge crafts for himself in this poem. And for Coleridge, the
poem is a chance for him to think through his own life, to find a
voice that can make sense of all the ideas and feelings
swarming around in his head.
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SETTING
Coleridge wrote this poem while living in a cottage in the large
village of Nether Stowey, in Somerset in South West England.
For the reader of the poem, what matters is that it takes place
in a small cottage in the middle of a winter night. Frost is
forming on the ground outside, and it is very quiet. Everyone
has gone to bed besides the speaker, who sits in front of the
dying fire with his sleeping baby by his side. The poem is rooted
in this cozy, quiet, sweetly lonely scene.
From there, it delves into memories, hopes, and imagined
scenes. In the speaker's mind, he travels back to boarding
school, then to a festival day in his birthplace, then to
magnificent landscapes, and finally back to the present winter
night. The speaker describes these imagined settings in vivid
terms, emphasizing his emotional connection to each of them.
As these descriptions progress, a split begins to emerge. On
one side of the split are environments that provoke a sense of
isolation, such as the winter cottage (at least at the beginning of
the poem), boarding school, and cities. On the other side of the
split are surroundings that create a feeling of openness and
closeness to God, particularly "the hot Fair-day," and the scene
of "lakes and sandy shores" and "ancient mountain." Ultimately,
the speaker seems to reconcile this split, because at the end of
the poem he finds peace in his isolated cottage, describing
"silent icicles, / Quietly shining to the quiet Moon."
CONTEXT
Sonnet LITERARY CONTEXT
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is part of the first generation of
English Romantic poets. Romanticism was an artistic and
intellectual movement that spread through Europe and
America from the late 1700s through the 1800s (this poem
was published in 1798). There are many ideas and artistic
practices associated with Romanticism, but in terms of
Coleridge it is possible to hone in on the body of work
produced by him and his friend William W Wordsworth
ordsworth.
Together, Coleridge and Wordsworth developed a vision of
how God spoke to human beings through nature. They believed
that if people wanted to understand reality, they had to
examine their own experiences in the natural world. Thus, for
these two poets, personal memories were of the utmost
importance. After people had passionate or spiritually
significant events out in nature, it was through memory that
they came to understand the full significance of such events.
This link between memory, nature, God, and human
understanding is on display in "Frost at Midnight." It would be
most thoroughly developed in Wordsworth's long,
autobiographical poem, The Pr Prelude
elude.
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In fact, although The Prelude is heavily indebted to "Frost at people can become closer to God.
Midnight," it eventually eclipsed this earlier poem. Coleridge In turn, this politics is a distinct outgrowth of its time. Radical
felt that Wordsworth had gone far beyond him, proving himself French politics, which inspired Coleridge and others, resulted
the superior poet. At the same time, Coleridge's poem paved from the rise of bourgeoisie, or business-owning class, as they
the way for Wordsworth. Both poets had wanted to find a way displaced the old aristocracy. This rise happened in England as
to use the kind of blank vverse
erse found in Milton's epic poem well as France. One consequence of this was that literature no
Par
aradise
adise Lost as a means of exploring inner thoughts and longer had to appeal to aristocrats alone. Poets could address
feelings (rather than depicting awesome battles between the everyday experiences of common folk. Art was part of the
angels, as Milton had done). It was Coleridge, in his revolution.
conversation poems, such as the one here, that first began to
Additionally, the success of the empirical sciences throughout
work out how this could be done.
the 1700s meant that people looked on the physical world with
It should also be noted that "Frost at Midnight" only represents new interest. Suddenly it seemed that all events could be
one side of Coleridge's life as a poet. On the other side is what explained by science. People began to look to nature and
has been called a "demonic" interest in the supernatural, as science, rather religion, for explanations. Everyday experience
exemplified in his famous poems "The The Rime of the Ancient seemed to trump religious ecstasy.
Mariner
Mariner" and "Kubla
Kubla Khan
Khan." These poems, which are distinctly
For Coleridge and Wordsworth, however, this was an
Coleridgean, are full of fantasy and horror and a love of ancient
opportunity and a challenge. They set out to write poetry that
"lore." "Frost at Midnight" stands in stark contrast to such
could combine a radical emphasis on common people's
poems, and is all the richer for it. Although Coleridge was
experiences, first-hand observations of nature, and a deep
capable of weaving together incredibly imaginative stories,
sense of spirituality. The result was the beginning of English
here he sticks to everyday images and his humble, tender love
Romanticism.
for his child.
"Frost at Midnight" has gone on to influence poets in many
ways. In terms of the way it incorporates autobiographical MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
details, its echoes can be seen in the work of so-called
confessional poets in the 20th century, like Robert Lowell ("F For EXTERNAL RESOURCES
the union Dead
Dead"). In the way that it attempts to weave together • Pantisocr
antisocracy
acy — An essay on Pantisocracy, the religious-
sights from the ordinary world with speculation about the communistic utopia that Coleridge and his friends had
nature of reality, the poems of Wallace Stevens ("Thirteen
Thirteen hoped to found. (https:/
(https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2015/
/wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2015/
Ways of LLooking
ooking at Blackbird
Blackbird"), Elizabeth Bishop ("The
The Fish
Fish)", 09/02/coleridge-and-the-pantisocr
09/02/coleridge-and-the-pantisocratic-pipe-dream/)
atic-pipe-dream/)
and John Ashbery are obvious descendants. Although
Coleridge may have felt overshadowed by Wordsworth, his • A Mo
Movie
vie Star Reads the P
Poem
oem — Hear Richard Burton
influence has been felt for a long time. read "Frost at Midnight." (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/
watch?v=o9K7BmjUnkw)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• A Biogr
Biograph
aphyy of Coleridge — A detailed biography of
Coleridge grew up in a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing Samuel Taylor Coleridge from the Poetry Foundation.
England, a process that was often dirty, bleak, and unjust. He (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-ta
.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-taylor-
ylor-
attended boarding school on a scholarship in London, which coleridge
coleridge))
seems to have cemented his ambivalence about cities. His
emphasis on nature can be seen in part as a reaction to the • Coleridge Cottage — The cottage where Coleridge wrote
"Frost at Midnight" is in the southwest of England, where
brutishness of industrialization as he experienced it.
it is preserved by the National Trust. Their website has
Coleridge, like Wordsworth and many of their friends, was also photos and historical information.
a political radical as a young man. The French Revolution (https:/
(https://www
/www.nationaltrust.org.uk/coleridge-cottage
.nationaltrust.org.uk/coleridge-cottage))
coincided with his young adulthood and inspired him.
Thoroughly middle-class, Coleridge had no link to the • More on "F"Frost
rost at Midnight" — An article of "Frost at
aristocracy. He was, however, profoundly religious, and Midnight" from the Poetry Foundation.
together with like-minded friends developed a scheme to (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70316/
.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70316/
samuel-ta
samuel-taylor-coleridge-frost-at-midnight)
ylor-coleridge-frost-at-midnight)
establish a small settlement in American based around religious
communism. They called Pantisocracy; it never materialized. All LITCHARTS ON OTHER SAMUEL COLERIDGE
the same, Coleridge's attitude towards nature and religion in POEMS
"Frost at Midnight" can be seen as bound up in his politics, a
• Kubla Khan
sense that nature provides an egalitarian environment where
• The Eolian Harp

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HOW T
TO
O CITE
MLA
Griffin, Brandan. "Frost at Midnight." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 1 Jul
2019. Web. 9 Nov 2020.

CHICAGO MANUAL
Griffin, Brandan. "Frost at Midnight." LitCharts LLC, July 1, 2019.
Retrieved November 9, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/
samuel-coleridge/frost-at-midnight.

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